Hopefully if you are local you will be able to make it and help raise funds to fight Ebola. I think there is space for 20 people at the location. So come along have a good time playing a great game.
A Reminder Pandemic Party Tomorrow
All posts by Darren
Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy appNot So Random Stuff About Expansions
I've mentioned in a previous post that I like games that have expansions. They expand the game! Add new options, modes of play, more players, new scenarios, etc. Basically add more variety. They aren't necessary on the whole but for the odd game they are to make the game more enjoyable.
New Arrival
Today the Harbour Expansion for Machi Koro arrived. It adds the cards to allow a fifth player, new cards and play modes. I'll do a more indepth look in another post.
In the Harbour Expansion is also a teaser for the next expansion coming out later this year!
A Brief Rant
One game I'm playing a lot of at the moment (admittedly using the iPad app) is Star Realms. There are two main expansions for this deck building game, Gambit and Crisis. But can I buy these in the UK? Nope nowhere has them in stock. Ones I can find are in the US and with postage (and possible import duty) really expensive. The Crisis expansion is made up of four individual themed packs, each costing (if available in the UK £3.95 – yeah back to the $1 = £1 exchange rate). However buying them through eBay means each pack is pushing over £10! The Gambit expansion is roughly £20 for a £10 game. It's rediculous. So why is there such a shortage in the UK? This is making the Marvel Dice Masters Avengers vs X-Men shortage last year look like a small blip. I won't even mention how hard it is to source an official play mat for Star Realms, or how my heart sinks at the thought of how hard it is going to be to get the storage box (with exclusive promo card) and the official card sleeves. Poor supply is such a frustrating thing, and there is no excuse for it in this day and age. I understand that companies can be caught be surprise by being a lot more popular than they thought they would be with a game. But still I think the writing has been on the wall that Star Realms would be a popular game.
A Bit of Gaming News(ish) Or What Matt Leacock Did Next
Later this year a new co-operative game based on Thunderbirds is coming out. The game is design by Matt Leacock and published by Modiphius. Matt is famous for such games as Pandemic, Pandemic the Cure, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Island. All great co-operative board games. So the early indications are this should be a great game, great theme, great designer that excels at co-operative games, a theme that is suited to co-operative play.
It does look like Matt has a busy year ahead of him. Matt also has Pandemic Legacy coming out later in the year, which he has been developing with Rob Daviau ( designer of Risk Legacy). And is highly anticipated by Pandemic fans ( that includes me ).
As the image above shows there are plans to have two different boxes with different art work on. There was another game last year (name escapes me at the moment) that was released also with multiple variants of the box art. I'm not sure I like this trend. It reminds me a bit of the comic book industry and how they do this a lot (just look at how many variant covers there are for the new Marvel Star Wars comic issue 1). It strikes me as trying to milk money out of collectors.
Then finally in the first part of this year there is a new expansion for Pandemic coming out called State of Emergency.
So there you have it a brief “look what's just arrived”, a rant venting my frustration, and a “look what I'm excited about coming out later this year”.
A Book A Month Challenge
On my way to drop off some bits for this Thursday's Play Pandemic to fight Ebola event I passed a sign in a local Christain bookshop window promoting read a book a month list of Christain books. This got filed away for later today in my mind. Unlucky for you dear reader I remembered this and my thoughts that went with seeing this sign.
I've seen this sort of thing before in other places, such as Twitter where some teachers are reading an educational book a month as part of their CPD. I've read in newspapers about book groups etc doing this. So it seems a popular thing to do. Seeing that sign earlier reminded me of this. And I'm never one to miss jumping on a bandwagon, even when that bandwagon has nearly come to a halt.
So then the cogs started turning in mind and I thought “wait why don't I do something like this for this blog?” But are there enough gaming books to do this? I'm not sure, but I know four to start with.
- Chicks Dig Gaming: A Celebration of All Things Gaming by the Women Who Love It
- Modern Perspectives on Game Design
- Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games
- Boardgames That Tell Stories: The funniest Guide To Game Design
So starting in February I'm going to read the first book on the list Chicks Dig Gaming. Then at the end of the month I'll write a blog post about the book, and have a discussion in the comments for that post about the book. Then in March I'll read the second book, write a post and repeat.
In the meantime if there is a relevant book about gaming you think should be added to the list leave a comment below with your suggestion. I know there is a book looking at the history behind the game Monopoly. Which even though I don't enjoy the game I think could be very interesting. So I will find out the books title and author and add it to the end of this post as an update.
Hopefully this post has made you think this is a cool idea and would like to join me in this challenge.
UPDATE: The Monopoly book isn't out until mid February and the other I have as an audio book (yet to listen too)
A Pandemic Party This Thursday
This Thursday sees a Pandemic Party being held in Wisbech at The Entertainment Centre in aid to raise funds to help fight ebola. I wrote about Pandemic Parties previously here. Hopefully if you live locally you will be able to attend, have a great time playing Pandemic the game and help raise funds to fight ebola.
Click HERE to get full details of the event (it's a facebook event page)
What I Look For In A Game
Potentially Busy April
April (at the moment) sees two international gaming events being held. Or opportunities for fans of board games to get together and play games. Well it's not as if gamers need an excuse. But these global events kind of have the feel of taking part in something bigger, being part of a larger community.
I'm hoping that The Rift or The Entertainment Centre will be doing something on these days (nothing announced yet). If I haven't heard anything by the end of February I'm going to organise something for my friends and me. If I end up organising my own thing I know it's a long shot, as you normally have to be a store, but I'd love to get my hands on some of the promos they usually do for these days to give out to those that attend.
11th April sees the Third International Table Top Day. This is a general gaming day, with the intention to just play games, maybe try something new, meet new gamers, possibly introduce new people to gaming. Wil Wheaton is one of the brains behind this day, and his excellent web series Table Top.
25th April sees the first International Catan Day. A day celebrating the game Catan (that's the new official name for Settlers of Catan). So an excuse to play this modern classic.
So I hope this has given you a heads up to maybe organise something for these days yourself, or to ask your FLGS if they have plans for these days.
Eggbox Terrain Starscapes Playmat
Finally my starfield playmat for X-Wing arrived! This was an Eggbox Terrain Kickstarter for Starscapes that I backed last year, £26 for a 3' by 3' playmat. Amazing value. It looks gorgeous. Look how awesome it looks with a couple of ships on it.
The only drawback is my “gaming table” (a fold down dining table) is about an inch not wide enough. But I will work round it. I'm so excited to take this with me on my next visit to Nathan for us to play on.
Mid January New Arrivals
Well technically one is a new arrival (today) the other two came just after the New Year.
First to arrive were two promos purchased from Board Game Geek (BGG) for the games Alhambra and Tokaido (top half of the photo). I like that BGG gets promos (not all sadly) to sell. Most promos are gained from attending conventions (majority based in the US). So the only chance to get one is either eBay or BGG. BGG tends to be the kinder option of the two selling the promos at a reasonable affordable price.
Promos aren't necessary for a game. There said it before someone else did. So why do I like them? I have a character flaw. Sadly companies exploit people like me. My flaw? I'm a completesionist (is that a real word?) If I like something I have to have all the bits for it, expansions, promos, different covers (if comics), appearances (even if it's a single panel in a comic). So you get the picture. Yeah I'm weird. Besides my flawed character, promos add a little variety or new options to a game. For example the Takaido promo I got adds a new character for players to chose to play with. While the the Alhambra promo adds new tiles (buildings) to purchase.
In the later half of last year Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) announced the Scum and Villainy faction for the X-Wing miniatures game, which is wave 6 iirc. Now the Scum and Villainy version of the Aces packs for the Imperials and Rebels comes with extra cards etc that convert one or two ships to the new faction if you want to use them with the new faction. One of those ships that can be converted will be Slave-1 which I didn't have. Now the ships in X-Wing have print runs, and if you try and get a ship between runs it can cost you a lot more (depending on how desperate you are) than the rrp. Luckily Slave-1 and the Falcon (already got) have just been reprinted and the container ship has hit our shores and the contents distributed to the game stores. Which means these ships can now be bought for a sensible price again. Hence I've bought the Slave-1 while it is available. There will be many like me that will have waited for this reprint, and snapping up the ships at the correct price. Which means they will sell out quickly again and become scarce and expensive once more. It's a vicious circle.
A Look At The Official Diceamasters Dice Bag
I think it's pretty clear to regular readers how I feel about Dicemasters. For those still wondering I LOVE it. There are some official accessories for the game, such as setup boxes, card storage boxes, playmats and the subject of this post a dice bag. Below you will find an attempt at reviewing the bag using sketchnotes!
I'm still learning to sketchnote, and my “artistic” abilities are a bit basic but with practice I will improve. So bare with me as I find my voice and style.
A Game Night With Friends
Last night I held a gaming night at my home. Before everyone arrived I relocated the two canine criminals next door with Nan. They may look all cute and innocent in the photo below. But those innocent faces hide two of the most jealous attention seeking individuals you will come across.
Those two won’t let me speak to anyone even on the phone without getting jealous and demanding my attention be given to them instead. So for the good of the evening the wolf pack spent some quality time with Nan.
We started the evening playing Zombicide. Sam, James and myself controlled two characters each to take on M02 Food! from the game night scenarios. Our mission was to get into the fast food diner, and eat there. But before we could do that we had to collect the objective tokens in the other two buildings. However there was just the small matter of the zombie horde between us and our objectives.
The game kit comes with 6 Kyoko characters, the zombivor version of Kyoko, plus the ID card for Kyoko. There are also 6 experience trackers, six green Zombicide dice, and the campaign book. Sam played with the Kyoko character during the game. I used one of each of the items to form the basis of a little gaming night goody bag. The rest of the goody bag was made up with a Lego Wood Elf minifig, and a comic based on the rebooted Gauntlet video game. Well the game kit is meant to be used as “prizes” and I can only play with one Kyoko, so no point holding onto them all, and I like to share.
Back to the game, the spawn cards were mostly kind to us, our characters did get wounded especially after one or two extra activations. The game came down to a couple of key turns. We were surrounded by two fatties, runners and walkers stopping us getting into the diner.
If the dice went against us we would be wiped out. It was close but the dice were kind to us and we managed to clear away the zombies to buy us enough time to eat in the diner and escape. We got real lucky that an abomination wasn’t drawn. If it had been we would of been stuffed because we had nothing to kill it with. By that I mean weapon powerful enough.
Having successfully survived the zombie horde we moved on to Munchkin (playing the Deluxe version). Gary arrived just at the right moment to join us.
As the above photo shows I ended up with a character that was half dwarf and half halfling, or as I declared the love child of Thorin and Bilbo. I know, I’m not going to let biology get in the way of a joke, and what an image to plant in people’s minds.
As per usual for Munchkin our game consisted of backstabbing, revenge backstabbing, monsters getting power ups, curses, running from monsters, getting loot, killing monsters, making deals and lots of laughs. Sam ended up winning the game.
I hadn’t played Cards Against Humanity before, I was aware of it and its reputation. We played the original cards and one of the expansions. Sam gave everyone a blank card to write an answer on that would then get added to the deck of official answers. I have to say it was a very funny game, and it is definitely a game you need to have the right people to play with. I know Nath and his friends would really enjoy playing this.
The final game of the evening was Zombie Dice. We played two games. I narrowly missed winning the first game that was stolen from me by James. Who then went on to win the second game too. I like Zombie Dice, it’s a nice light game, friendly banter, a great game to end the evening on.
I really enjoyed the evening, great company, great games. Thank you Sam, James and Gary.